Suicide Runners: Creed of the Martyr
by hakuse-kun
Summary: The Wave mission goes horribly wrong, leaving Naruto scarred and his teammates dead. Kakashi can't look at him without remembering the Third Great Shinobi War, so a transfer is in order. Naruto, meet Team F, the Suicide Runners. NaruHina AU
1. Chapter 1

Naruto stared down at the bloody kunai in his hands. When the two samurai had attacked Tsunami, he had reacted the fastest and most efficient way he could. He had killed them, watched their expressions with cold detachment as he slid his kunai over their necks. A quick glance told him that Inari and his mother were okay, if horrified. He crouched down and wiped the knife off on the first corpse's shirt, slipped it back into its holster, and told Inari and Tsunami to find somewhere safe. With a tired sigh, he made his way out of the small home and began running for the bridge.

If Gato had attacked here, he would have attacked the bridge as well. As he ran, he slipped a pair of kunai up his sleeves, wanting some kind of advantage if he was attacked unexpectedly. Unbeknownst to many, the Hokage hadn't given him the 'Kill Me' jumpsuit without good reason. It was made out of very durable material, created little noise when he moved, and had small catches sewn into it that could allow him to easily conceal weapons. The kunai didn't shift as he ran, indicating that he had placed them correctly.

When he finally arrived, he was relived to see that Sakura was fine, still guarding Tazuna. Kakashi and Zabuza were concealed in the fog, and he could see a large dome barely visible to the left. As he neared it, he quickly spotted Sasuke standing in the center of the structure, looking worse for the wear. He spotted the fake hunter-nin leaning out of a mirror, and let fly with a volley of knives. The masked man blocked the first few, but one caught his mask and knocked him out of the mirror. Not one to waste an opportunity, Naruto raced into the dome, landing a kick that sent the recovering shinobi back to the ground.

"Sasuke, are you alright?" Naruto watched the downed hunter, ready to foil any attempte to rise.

"Yeah, I'm ok. K.O. the bastard already, would you?" Sasuke growled as he ripped a senbon out of his arm. Naruto moved to follow Sasuke's sound advice, only to watch the hunter disappear with a pop, replaced by some carpenter's tool. He turned with a curse, but froze when he saw the hunter standing over Sasuke, bloodied senbon in hand.

"I'm sorry, but it appears that I won't be able to play around anymore. Know that your actions caused their deaths." He disappeared, and a feminine shriek pierced the air. Naruto ran back towards Sakura as the mirrors faded, only to see her fall to the Hunter's newly acquired kunai blade. He loosed another kunai volley, forcing the murdering shinobi away from Tazuna, who had a nasty gash to show for his encounter. Naruto fell to his knees at Sakura's side, trying desperately to rouse her from apparent death. When his attempts failed, he bellowed forth an anguished scream, and buried his face in he pink locks.

"Is this the first time you've lost comrades in battle?" The murderer's voice penetrated his sorrow, allowing anger to bleed through. "This is the life of a true shinobi. Stop crying and stand up. Attack me! Avenge your lost friends!" Naruto roared, forcing himself to his feet. Red chakra oozed from his seal, giving him strength and feeding his anger. He blurred out of the hunter's sight, reappearing with his fist planted in the murderer's gut. The man doubled over, setting himself up for the painful knee to the face that came immediately after. Naruto knocked him back with a chakra infused roundhouse kick. Naruto growled when the man stood slowly, but his breath hitched in surprise when the hunter laughed.

"Yes! This is brilliant! You are a true shinobi. I can only feel gratified that my actions could create a monster such as you. Kill me! Kill me and then set your sights on those who would dare to challenge you! Show the world the power I have loosed!" Naruto could only stare in shock as the delirious man fell into hysterics, cracked mask slipping from his face. Tears running down his face, the boy he had spent a peaceful morning gathering herbs with laughed so hard he fell to his knees.

Naruto set his features, walking forward and sliding a kunai from his holster. He stopped in front of Haku, feeling a twinge of pity, and decapitated him in one swift motion. Blood splashed out over his clothes, and he gagged slightly at the gory scene before him. He steeled himself and moved to check on Sakura.

He got down on his knees beside her, and a quick check to her pulse confirmed her death. A glance told him that Haku had slit her throat, just as he had done with the samurai.

It was strange, he thought, how he didn't feel anything. He had crushed on the girl for a good two years, and now that she was gone, nothing felt different. He rose to his feet and moved away, squinting through the mist. He wondered idly if Kakashi was dead as well.

The mist began to thin, and he could barely make out a figure standing over a body. He walked forward, figuring that whatever happened from here on out was not anything he could help. As he neared, he grinned in relief when he recognized the victor as his sensei. He became alarmed, however, when Kakashi collapsed. He ran over to the downed ninja, and was startled when the prone man spoke.

"Naruto, where is Sasuke? Is Sakura still with Tazuna?" Kakashi's voice was tired, barely above a whisper.

"Sasuke… is dead. Sakura died too. It was Haku." Naruto glared at the ground, finally feeling angry that he was too weak to save them.

"Haku? The Hunter-nin told you his name?" Kakashi seemed surprised, but was probably just trying to focus on something other than his students' deaths.

"Yes, he did. I killed him." Kakashi grunted, acknowledging the boy's response, and then seemed to fall asleep.

Naruto started to pick his teacher up, but froze when a voice echoed over the bridge.

"So the Demon Zabuza wasn't so great after all. Feh, I wasn't going to pay him anyway." Naruto turned slowly, deflating as he took in the size of the crowd of samurai.

"Still, at least he wore you out. It's laughable! The only thing standing between me and control of this country is a snot-nosed brat and a drunken bridge builder!"

Naruto fumbled with his kunai pouch, producing a kunai and taking a defensive stance.

"Tell you what, kid. If you leave now, and leave the bridge builder here, you can go peacefully. I won't even have my samurai pursue you. What do you say?" Naruto finally spotted the man speaking. Gato was a small man, strangely pathetic for someone with so much power. He wore a pinstripe suit, and supported himself with a short cane. One arm was in a cast. Naruto took all of this in, then sighed.

"As tempting as that offer is at this point, I'm afraid I'll have to refuse. Two good friends of mine died protecting this bridge, and I won't allow their efforts to have been in vain!" His voice started at a hoarse whisper, but grew louder as he spoke. "You can take your offer and shove it straight up your squat little ass! Go to Hell!" Gato seemed more amused than angry.

"You'll learn to regret those words, boy." He turned and began walking towards the back of the bridge, and gave orders as he walked. "I want the kid alive. You can do whatever with the other two."

Several samurai walked forward from the crowd, surrounding Naruto. A particularly ugly one with duel swords spoke first.

"C'mon kid. You'll come with us if you know what's good for you." As soon as the goon stopped talking, another yelled out.

"Aw, shut up, Kento! I haven't had a good fight in forever!" The loud one turned to Naruto. "I hope you're strong. I want to have a little fun before I'm stuck on guard duty again." The man rushed forward with a katana, and began a downward slice as soon as he was in range. The sword clattered to the ground, though, when Naruto moved around the blade and jammed a kunai into the samurai's chest.

"Dammit, Hanto! Fucking idiot!" The first swordsman charged forward, but stopped short when Naruto exploded into a cloud of smoke. There was mumbling from the samurai as they looked around, but everyone turned when a scream echoed from the back of the crowd. Naruto crouched over a corpse, pulling his kunai from it with a soft squelching noise. Wisening up, the group swarmed him all at once. Naruto was forced to parry blow after blow, being forced back toward the larger crowd of samurai farther down the bridge. He flipped backward so that he was a reasonable distance from both approaching sides, and placed his hands into his favorite seal. He omitted the usual battle cry, and several Bunshin appeared with soft pops.

The samurai rushed him and his clones from both sides, and the swarming attacks quickly overpowered the few Bunshin he had managed to produce. He fought as hard as he could for several minutes, defeating opponent after opponent, but stopped suddenly when a glob of blood erupted out of his mouth. His head drooped, and he dimly noticed the sword point poking out of his chest as everything went black

Naruto awoke, noticing the wetness of his clothing before anything else. He laid there for a while, assuming that he was dying in a puddle of his own blood. Only when a low growl echoed around him did he drag himself into a sitting position.

Despite the grandiosity of the scene before him, Naruto couldn't dredge up the awe that was supposed to accompany such moments. He stared blandly at the huge cage doors that rested in front of him, and the massive red eyes that resided behind them.

"Humph. It seems that my container is lacking his usual enthusiasm. Quite the improvement." The thing spoke, it's gravelly voice rumbling throughout the huge room. Naruto forced himself up, the realization dawning on him that the great beast was none other than the Kyuubi itself.

"Yeah, well, I've had a bad day." Naruto shrugged, slightly astounded with his own casualness. The beast seemed impressed, raising its head from it's previous position.

"So it seems. Your pathetic ninja academy has done nothing to prepare you for this world. The ineffectiveness of the system sickens me." At this, Naruto grinned.

"Why do you think I always skipped out on class?" The question elicited a small snort from the fox, and its mouth stretched wider in a grin.

"Amusing as this conversation is, you are currently bleeding yourself out on the bridge while Gato berates his subordinates for their stupidity. I can heal such a wound easily, so there is no need for worry, but I can't allow such an offense to my host to go unpunished. I will give you a fraction of my power now. I only wish that you use it to wipe that pathetic scum from this place. Are my conditions satisfactory?" Naruto grinned.

"I accept. It has been good talking with you, Kyuubi no Kitsune."

"And you, Uzumaki Naruto."

A/N: I hope you guys enjoyed that. This story is going to be pretty angsty, so if you don't like it, don't read it. Yes, I did kill off Sasuke and Sakura. No, I didn't do it just because I could. This little device will open up an bevy of options for me, and completely obliterates any chance of a linear plotline. The story is going to be completely original from here on out, so expect me to pull some crazy stuff out of the proverbial hat. The Kyuubi is going to be good in this story. My reasoning is that the Kyuubi is at least a several hundred year old being. A single human life would be a blink of an eye for him, so he wouldn't really mind imprisonment too much. If anything, my Kyuubi is out to have fun, so he'll toss little curve balls to Naruto throughout the story to keep things interesting for him. My Naruto is going to be more distant, because of the loss of his team. He feels a sort of detachment to everything, and cares less than he should. This is it for now. You can expect Naruto to meet his team within the next few chapters.


	2. Chapter 2

Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto.

Kento stood at the front of the crowd of samurai while Gato ranted, taking the brunt of the verbal assault. As leader of the group, it was his responsibility, no matter who had actually killed the brat against orders. He wished he had been the one to end the little shit, though. Hanto had been with him through the years, and even if he hadn't really been a friend, he was a fixture. It hurt to lose one of the few people in the group he actually knew.

Finally, Gato quieted for a few minutes, before ordering Kento to retrieve the boy's body. The veteran samurai moved through the crowd until he came out the other side, then walked the rest of the way to the body. His slow gait was the only defiance Gato would tolerate, as he knew it was only to keep the mercenary group's morale up. It wouldn't do if they thought their leader was Gato's new lapdog.

He stopped beside the dead child and squatted down, taking a good look at his face. He memorized the features, as he did with all of his powerful opponents. As he went through the small tradition, he noticed something strange. The boy was still breathi-!

The bridge shook when power exploded from the boy, blowing Kento several yards back. He landed hard, and cried out when he felt something crack. He curled in on himself, only managing to crack his eyes open through the pain a few moments later. What he saw tempted him to close them again.

The blond child stood in the center of a maelstrom of malevolent chakra, staring blankly at the fallen samurai. Their eyes met, and it took all of Kento's anger-fueled willpower not to look away from the stare. After several seconds of this, the boy shifted his attention to the large group of samurai, and Kento couldn't help the relieved sigh he released. As the adrenaline wore off, he was hit with a blast of fatigue that left him unconscious.

----------------------------------------------------

Naruto felt light, as free as a feather floating in the wind, and at the same time, as immovable as the greatest of mountains. Later, that was how he would describe the sensation to the late Sandaime Hokage, when asked how it felt to have the Kyuubi's chakra coursing through him. For several moments, he focused only on the feeling of such sheer power, then dimly noticed the samurai staring at him like a deer stares at a wolf. He sensed the Kyuubi's amusement when the man continued to meet his eyes despite the fear he was feeling.

"**Spare that one, Naruto. I feel that he will prove to serve some entertainment in the near future."** The Kyuubi was already making plans for the unfortunate mercenary, if the demon's frightful chuckle meant anything.

"If that's what you want." Naruto responded, before casting a glance at the group of men further down the bridge. "You still want them dead, right?"

"**Kick their asses, as I recall you were so fond of saying." **Another chuckle.

Naruto blurred out of sight, quickly reappearing in the center of the crowd, causing several men to step back or fall on their asses in surprise. He seemed to twitch slightly, and a man's head fell from his shoulders. Some samurai near the back of the crowd tried to run away, but Naruto blurred away again, and the samurai just seemed to disappear from sight.

Now unsure of their prey turned predator's location, the samurai huddled together, watching in all directions. A tense silence reigned for a few moments, before a man in the center noticed the sound of sizzling at his feet, and screamed.

The explosion killed the few who were closest to it, and knocked the rest to the ground with debilitating wounds. Naruto appeared beside one of the fallen men, and quickly sliced his neck open. He continued this process for a few moments, executing the wounded mercenaries one by one. He moved to kill the nearest of the three left, but stopped to parry the sword that nearly sliced him from shoulder to hip. He turned around to meet the eyes of Kento, who stood with his sword in one hand and the other clutching at his damaged rib. The Kyuubi gave a short bark.

"**See, Naruto? I told you this one would be fun!"**

Naruto didn't respond, but holstered his kunai and stepped quickly into the man's flimsy guard. He grabbed the mercenary's wrist and twisted it, forcibly disarming him. He hit Kento with a quick right hook to the jaw that sent him sprawling. The man got up, still clutching his rib, and made to retrieve his weapon. Before he could touch the handle, Naruto stomped upon the blade and shattered it.

Kento froze, his hand shaking, then he stood to his full height and drew his hand from the damaged rib back down to his side. Naruto heard his teeth grind and saw that his knuckles had went white from how hard he was clenching his hands. Suddenly, Kento let out a furious yell and attacked with all he had, throwing punches and kicks faster and harder then a normal man should have been able to, much less an injured one. Still, Naruto was far from normal and easily directed the frenzied attacks away from his person and landed another hit to the man's stomach, knocking the air out of his lungs and sending him to his hands and knees.

Naruto stepped back and waited for Kento to regain his breath and used the short reprieve to send a kunai knife into the throat of one of the still living wounded. This sent Kento into another short frenzy, which ended once again with the man on his hands and knees and another wounded samurai killed. Kento stood back up after a few moments, and turned to face Naruto.

"What the Hell are you? Some kind of demon?" The question earned a snort of amusement from Naruto, and a short answer.

"Jinchuuriki."

The man's eyes widened for a few seconds before he let loose a loud whoop of laughter, which quickly deteriorated into a series of bloody coughs. Once the man could breathe again, he looked down the bridge and spied the fat business man, who, surprisingly, was watching the fight with interest.

"Hey, Gato, did you hear that? This kid's a Jinchuuriki! That sure as Hell wasn't in the contract!" He laughed again and wiped the blood from his chin. He tried to step forward, but stumbled and fell at Naruto's feet, out cold. The boy checked to make sure he wouldn't be getting up any time soon, then blurred out of sight again. He reappeared with a kunai to Gato's throat. The man didn't flinch, but simply looked Naruto in the eye.

"A Jinchuuriki. You're a Jinchuuriki?" Naruto gave a short nod, and moved to cut the businessman's throat, but stopped when the man held up his hand.

"I could use someone like you in my employ. Not like these mercenaries, but as a permanent associate. I can pay you much more than your village will, and-!" Gato was cut off, literally.

"Sorry Gato, but I'm afraid any kind of business with you would be infringing upon a deal I've already made."

------------------------------------------------

After disposing of the wounded mercenaries and sending Kento off on one of the empty boats per Kyuubi's instructions, Naruto carried Kakashi back to Tazuna's house for rest. Tazuna's wound, while large, was fairly superficial and did not keep him from walking. The hunter-nin had been far better with a senbon than a kunai, it seemed. Naruto was hailed as a hero by the people of Wave, who would throw a celebration the next day in his honor. Before that, though, he needed to debrief with Kakashi.

Naruto slipped through the open doorway into Kakashi's room, then silently closed the door behind him. He sat himself down in a chair beside his sensei's bed, before waking him.

"Kakashi-sensei." The man's eyes opened, and he flinched when he saw Naruto sitting beside him. Naruto understood immediately, and sighed.

"You watched?" Kakashi nodded in response, gathering himself enough to look his student in the eyes.

"I'm sorry, Naruto. Watching that brought up old memories that I'd rather hadn't come back to me. I've gotten soft over the years, as my fights with Zabuza reminded me, and… I just… seeing you of all people…" The older man sighed, reaching up to run his hand through his hair. "If I had been stronger, you wouldn't have had to do that. You wouldn't have lost your innocence so early. I can't help but feel it's my fault."

Naruto placed one hand on the back of his head, scratching idly as he tried to come up with a response.

"It's not your fault, Sensei. I signed up for this, remember? It's probably better this way." Kakashi looked away, feeling another burden of guilt placed upon his shoulders.

"Naruto, with Sasuke and Sakura… gone, there's not enough people to continue Team Seven. It's unlikely that we could come up with two replacements, so you're probably going to have to transfer. I'll try my best to get you a good team; I'm glad to say that you deserve that much." Naruto nodded and stood slowly.

"Are you hungry, Kakashi? I'm sure Tsunami could cook you something." Kakashi gave one of his eye smiles and inclined his head. Naruto walked out.

------------------------------------------------

"Naruto-nii! I'm gonna go to the festival! Are you coming too?" Inari had began to hero-worship Naruto after the blond boy had saved his mother, and followed him wherever he went. While some people would have been annoyed, Naruto enjoyed it. The villagers wouldn't allow their children to spend time with him in his home village, so it felt good to have someone to talk to that didn't feel obliged to do so, like the Sandaime or his teammates. He was treated with much more respect in Wave than in Konoha, so he wanted to spend as much time talking with people and making friends as possible.

It still felt strange, though. His mind would wander to his deceased teammates often, and he would drift off in the middle of a conversation or while he was in the middle of something. Everything reminded him of their deaths.

But as he told Inari to wait while he got ready, he resolved not to let their deaths prevent him from living.

A/N: I'm sorry that this chapter is shorter than the last one, but this just seemed like a good place to end. I'm trying to find a happy medium between giving Naruto a personality and keeping him detached. Don't worry, though, this isn't then end of our hero's troubles. This is a tragedy fic, after all.


	3. Chapter 3

Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto.

Naruto hadn't been miffed in the slightest when Kakashi didn't show up at the festival. He had no doubt that man was grieving as much as he was, and probably just wanted to spend some time alone. But now they were two days in on their trip home, and Kakashi still hadn't spoken to him, or even looked him in the eye. His former sensei constantly occupied himself with menial tasks when they weren't on the move, and refused to allow Naruto to so much as help with camp duties. Naruto knew that this was Kakashi's way of avoiding him, and, bluntly, it pissed him off.

The anger he felt seemed oddly out of place with the hazy detachment he'd been feeling since the deaths of his teammates. He hadn't been able to bring himself to care much about anything up until he noticed Kakashi's lack of interaction with him. He despised being ignored, though; he figured that if he could care about one thing, it'd be that his mentor was blatantly trying to pretend he didn't exist.

He briefly confronted Kakashi about it when they were preparing the day's dinner. The older man tried to blow him off. When that didn't work, he simply shunshined away. After that, Naruto didn't try to approach his sensei again. It stayed like that for the rest of the trip back to Konoha.

-------------------------------------

Naruto sat quietly in the lobby outside of the Hokage's office, the only sound being the scratching of the secretary's pencil against paper. The woman hadn't spared him a glace since he and Kakashi had entered the room, reflecting his own indifferent attitude with her own. Naruto imagined that she saw teams return missing members fairly often; deaths were not uncommon among the shinobi ranks, after all. Still, he thought that she would have at least looked up from her work when they came through the door.

She had a slight resemblance to Sakura, he thought; it wasn't much, but her hair framed her face similarly and she didn't have much in the chest area. He recalled that Ino only used that particular insecurity against Sakura when she was really pissed. He wondered how the blond girl would react when she heard that Sakura was dead.

He didn't move when the large double-door to his right creaked open and Kakashi walked past him. He only stood when he heard the Hokage's voice call him softly, the sad tone easily identified. He walked into the office and silently shut the door behind him. He stood in front of the Hokage's desk for several moments before the silence was broken when the elder man stood up, drawing a creak from the old chair.

"I'm so sorry, Naruto." When his adopted grandfather embraced him in a hug, and Naruto knew there was no one there to judge him, he didn't cry.

-------------------------------------

He hung his jacket up as he walked into his small apartment and shut the door quietly behind him. After the old man had decided that Naruto was in somewhat stable condition, he had allowed the boy to give his mission report. Following that, Sarutobi had explained that Naruto would most likely be placed in another genin team with a new instructor. By the time everything had been sorted out, it was rather late. For the first time in while, Naruto hadn't taken the first opportunity to stop at Ichiraku's ramen stand. Looking back, doing so probably would have been a good idea, since the old man and his daughter were two of Naruto's closest friends, but Naruto didn't feel like talking to anyone. So he sat down at his kitchen table and lay his head down on his arms, too tired to make a cup of ramen and too restless to go to bed. He thought about Haku, the gentle soul that turned out to be an insane killer; he thought about Sakura, the crush who he couldn't bring himself to grieve for, and he thought about Sasuke, who's death had a strangely profound effect on him. Sasuke had been a fixture in Naruto's life even longer than Sakura. The bastard of an Uchiha had always been there for Naruto to surpass, a short-term goal to go along with his long-term goal of becoming Hokage. The other boy had been a physical manifestation of Naruto's need to improve himself. For him to disappear so easily, it felt as if Naruto's dreams could be snatched away in a similar instant.

His thoughts turned to Kakashi, the man whom couldn't seem to so much as look at him. Naruto couldn't believe that his teacher just deserted him so easily; it brought an intense anger that burned like fire through his veins, but, at the same time, Naruto couldn't hate the man for it.

In the course of a single day, Naruto had lost three of his precious people. What's worse, it didn't seem to change anything; instead, it stopped the changes that had been slowly taking place. Sighing, Naruto closed his eyes. Life wasn't supposed to be easy, he supposed.

-------------------------------------

Kento finally opened his eyes a crack, only to close them back quickly and cover them with his arm for good measure. The kid had certainly did a number on him, he thought when he felt a painful throb in his chest. After several moments of lying in that position, he moved his arm and forced himself to open his eyes fully. The light felt like fire scorching through his irises, but he endured the pain and took in the area around him. He was lying on the deck of one of Gato's large ships, but he didn't feel the gut-twisting rocking motion that usually accompanied them.

He managed to get to his feet, noting the bandages that wrapped his chest as they pulled across his ribcage painfully. Whoever had tended to him was gonna get a boot up their ass, he decided as he took another look around. The ship was beached on a large shore that stretched from one horizon to the other, which explained why it wasn't rocking. After a moment of blank staring, it came to him that he was most likely to be somewhere in Fire or the unclaimed Wilds. Taking in the absolute lack of footprints, litter, or other things one would usually find on a beach, he figured that he was definitely in the Wilds. Only one word, he realized, could possibly describe this situation.

"Aww, shit!" After properly getting a grip on his current predicament, Kento proceeded to spew out much more profanity, calming himself enough to effectively reason out a solution. He began to go over all of the information he'd ever acquired on the Wilds in his mind.

The Wilds was a large forest that hadn't been set foot in since the Shodai Hokage's death. It was said to be teeming with monsters and demons and was to be kept well away from.

Kento blinked, surprised at how little he actually knew about the place. Sighing, he turned and walked across the deck of the ship. He stopped at the back of the boat and stared out over the ocean. The peaceful sight helped to further calm his nerves. After a moment, he made his way down to the lower decks and was pleased to see that he had a large stock of food at his disposal. He quickly gathered up enough rations to last him a long while without over-burdening him. He left the food in a pile to move further into the ship, grabbing anything he thought would be useful. Several minutes into it, he did a double-take and froze. Privately, the first thought that popped into his head was how cute the little girl was, looking up at him with furry ears twitching.

"Umm… Hi?" Kento mentally slapped his forehead. He must look like an idiot, he thought, even to the little girl. The girl didn't laugh at him, however, nor did she make any sort of noise at all. The mercenary stared down at the little girl, who stared up at him. Kento promptly stood up straighter and stretched his hand out.

"Hello, little one. My name is Kento." He held that pose for several seconds, before slowly lowering his arm. Silently, he fretted over how stupid he must look to the kid. He crouched down, looked her in the eyes, and tried again.

"Little one - !" Then he broke out into intelligible sputters and went cross-eyed when she licked him on the nose.

------------------------------------

He watched the little fox-eared girl run all around the ship, seemingly curious about every little thing that caught her eye. He'd already discovered an empty cage, which he'd presumed she somehow escaped from. This, he thought, totally screwed him over. His conscience wouldn't let him leave the girl here, and it was going to be Hell protecting her from whatever was in the forest.

Kento scowled and rubbed his chest.

AN: I'm really sorry, guys! I know this chapter was short, but I really needed to get it over with. Then next chapter will be far more interesting, since Naruto will be meeting the Suicide Runners and Kento will be setting forth into the forest with his new friend.


End file.
